1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a branch structure and a wire harness.
2. Background Art
For example, in a vehicle wire harness, a branch-line harness is connected to a trunk-line harness in which trunk lines such as a power supply system line and a ground line are integrated, and is connected to each electrical component.
As a technique of connecting the branch-line harness to the trunk-line harness and branching the branch-line harness, there is a technique for press-contacting the trunk line of the trunk-line harness against a pressure-contact terminal of a branching mechanism and connecting to the branch line, using the branching mechanism having the pressure-contact terminal (e.g., see JP-A-2015-227089).
In the branching mechanism provided with the pressure-contact terminal, since the trunk lines are pushed to come into pressure-contact between a pair of pressure-contact blades, the pressure-contact blades are disposed on both sides of the trunk line. Therefore, when the branch-line harness is branched using the pressure-contact terminal, the interval between the trunk lines of the trunk-line harnesses arranged in parallel increases and the occupied space increases.
Further, in the branch structure using the pressure-contact terminal, since the electric wires are pushed and brought into contact with each other between the pressure-contact blades, there is a risk of a decline in the connection reliability due to the insufficiency of the contact area in the trunk line such as the electric power line through which a large current flows.
Further, in recent years, a rigid body line made of an aluminum single line is used as a trunk line of a trunk-line harness of a vehicle wire harness for the purpose of weight reduction and handling improvement. However, since the pressure-contact blades of the pressure-contact terminal are hard to cut into the single line that is a rigid body line, there is a desire for a branch structure that replaces a branch structure using a branching mechanism with a pressure-contact terminal.
The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and an object of the present invention is to provide a branch structure and a wire harness capable of ensuring high connection reliability while saving space.